Advice to help plan for early retirement
At the moment:
- Earnings - 179k (me) + 25k (wife)
- Pension 1.1M (me) - wife pension is neglible
- My taxable income is 129k (bad for tax bands) with 50k in pension yearly
- 50k S&S ISA + 60k cash ISA (wife likes to have cash) + small emergency fund
- House paid off
- Aged 48 (kids 15 & 13, so will be approaching uni finish at retirement age)
- Target is 55
- Don't have masses to save per month - can't max ISA just now without changing something (we spend 8-10k a year on holidays on average)
My reading is:
- Pension is good and I don't need to keep adding so heavily - in fact, 1.1M in 7 years may reach 2M (my target) on its own
- Bridge between retiring & pension is the problem - need more ISAs (200k?)
I can't bring myself to stop pension contributions yet to divert to ISA due to the tax savings - been contributing hard to pension forever.
Am I being stupid here - should I cut pension to say 25k a year so that I can fill an ISA every year?
Thoughts and advice would be welcome.
Posted Aug 3, 2026, 10:46 AM UTC
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